[{"_1":2,"_87":-5,"_88":-5},"loaderData",{"_3":4,"_26":27},"root",{"_5":6,"_17":10,"_18":19,"_20":21,"_22":10,"_23":-5,"_24":-5,"_25":10},"user",{"_7":8,"_9":10,"_11":10,"_12":-5,"_13":-5,"_14":15,"_16":-5},"roles",[],"isAuthenticated",false,"isPremium","planName","subscriptionStatus","featureFlags",{},"insightsBudget","isDevelopmentHost","userPreferences",{},"recaptchaSiteKey","6LcvOJcUAAAAAHsB-gPGfGktcRlKpH7OTIU_dMTD","isImpersonating","impersonation","affiliateStatus","isFreedomPortal","routes/v2/article/layout",{"_28":29,"_30":31},"notFound",true,"relatedArticles",[32,75],{"_33":34,"_35":36,"_37":38,"_39":40,"_41":42,"_43":44,"_45":46,"_47":48,"_49":50,"_51":52,"_53":54,"_55":56,"_57":58,"_59":60,"_61":62,"_63":64,"_65":66,"_67":68,"_69":70,"_71":68,"_72":73,"_74":73},"mediaId",6097205,"mediaKeyId","2828723-d37ac4f4b0e176925b9438b4193edc6d","parentId",2828723,"title","Seattle committee previews interim rules to implement House Bill 11-10, sets one-year window","audioSeconds",760,"startMs",262620,"endMs",1023060,"viewUrl","/Search/View?dp=1&key=2828723-d37ac4f4b0e176925b9438b4193edc6d&start=262&end=1023","thumbnailUrl","https://assets.pipeline.soar.com/2828723-d37ac4f4b0e176925b9438b4193edc6d/thumbnail_262620.jpg","articleUrl","/articles/6097205/Seattle/King-County/Washington/Seattle-committee-previews-interim-rules-to-implement-House-Bill-11-10-sets-one-year-window","mediaUrl","https://secure.pipeline.soar.com/6097205-08fb23c21b54323de95240d7fb189d2c/orig.mp4?Expires=1773111214&Signature=j2EKTzOz9jTU1maOB8vGeAMzX7YCiia-1ccfOstMkLA31OgBSMWijwdfvyWIBbwh-CS1~yWWtbWwwUoY6NHGB~R1tYjvNndm1nrxo44pjuuM~4yPk8VTgtplmY114mn~ysfWRApeVjIAyAjImwV6z4iDxTte11NgaS3bgxMbxa0fLIlMgyXe-9FOmO15Sz84KbTDY719vDiDYpDw-SBkFMLWtKpjgn7gKap9rKvgEFZ1jlx0L1zMHOrqoRM3vun6pMYrstUPIxqmL4~MCLg3Z7uJOjYjEfWx3tY0P-~IOL5NA~VP4fHsT698nxu3pPlNw8pIOazAC~4OjFK-bmSTwA__&Key-Pair-Id=KUT5TJCACFTXG","author","Seattle City, WA","date","2025-03-28T20:47:18Z","article","The Select Committee on the Comprehensive Plan heard an overview March 29 from city planning staff and the mayor’s office on interim legislation the executive proposes to meet the state requirements of House Bill 11-10.

The presentation said the interim ordinance is narrowly written to “comply with house bill 11 10” and other state laws with similar deadlines while the city works toward permanent code changes. The executive proposes the interim rules take effect by June 30 and remain in place for up to one year while staff prepare a permanent package, subject to the hearing examiner’s pending appeals of the comprehensive plan environmental impact statement.

The interim text would require residential lots zoned for housing to allow a wider range of “middle housing” types. “Under the interim legislation you would have lots would be allowed to have up to 4 units per lot or 6 if they're near major transit or 2 are affordable, consistent with HB 11 10,” said Bridal Staley of the Office of Planning and Community Development. The presenters explained the interim approach applies that 4-or-6-unit allowance to existing lots only; subdividing a lot would not preserve extra unit allowances for the new parcels.

Staff described additional numerical standards included in the interim proposal. Floor‑area‑ratio (FAR) would vary with unit count, starting at about 0.6 FAR for a single unit and stepping up to approximately 1.2 FAR for four or more units. Under the interim text, building height limits would generally be about 32 feet (three stories), lot coverage caps would stay near 50 percent, and typical setbacks would be 10 feet front and rear (0 rear where an alley exists) and 5 feet at the side (0 with an alley). Presenters noted garages remain constrained by turn‑radius requirements and may still need 4–8 feet of setback even when alley setbacks are zero.

The interim bill also implements several state mandates cited by staff: updates to clear-and-objective design standards, limits on how cities regulate off‑street parking near frequent transit, and changes to electrical‑vehicle charging standards for new development. Staff said design review for affordable housing may be limited to administrative review and that parking could be exempted within a half‑mile of a major transit stop, consistent with the state model ordinance.

Geographic scope in the interim draft focuses on neighborhood residential zones (NR‑1, NR‑2, NR‑3) and residential small‑lot zones, which together represent roughly two‑thirds of the city’s residentially zoned land, plus adjustments in low‑rise zones needed to comply with state law. Staff said the interim package is intentionally narrower than the permanent legislation: it includes only provisions necessary for legal compliance and those items where the proposed permanent code and the state model ordinance are already closely aligned.

During the briefing council members pressed staff on definitions and impacts: Council President Nelson asked how “frequent transit” is defined; staff replied that the city code definition generally refers to stops served about every 15 minutes during a weekday span (roughly a 10‑hour weekday window) with additional weekend requirements. Council members asked for more detail about lot sizes and FAR tradeoffs; staff said lot sizes in Seattle vary widely, from about 3,000 square feet up to 100,000 square feet or more, and that the permanent code would use a density approach that scales with lot size rather than a single 4‑unit cap.

Staff repeatedly noted one constraint on the interim package: the city’s environmental impact statement for the comprehensive plan is under appeal to the hearing examiner. On attorney advice, staff said the appeals have reduced the set of policy choices the city can put into interim rules and that some desired provisions for the permanent legislation—bonuses to incentivize stacked flats and deeper incentives for low‑income housing—were omitted from the interim text for that reason.

The committee was told the council will hold a public hearing prior to May 30 (the chair said the hearing date will be announced soon) and that the executive expects to transmit permanent HB 11‑10 implementing legislation in May or June, depending on the appeals and law department review schedule. If the council does not pass permanent legislation by the state deadline, staff said the state's model ordinance would go into effect in Seattle.

The presentation closed with staff saying the interim ordinance will include a rationale and a one‑year work plan to finalize permanent code changes; the committee sought additional detail on alignments between the interim and permanent drafts and asked staff to provide more data on lot size distributions and the legal limits imposed by the EIS appeals.

The committee did not take a vote on the interim ordinance at the March 29 briefing; staff will return with additional materials and a public hearing date before the council considers formal action.","mediaType","Video","parentTitle","Select Committee on the Comprehensive Plan 3/28/2025","oneSentenceSummary","The Select Committee on the Comprehensive Plan heard an overview March 29 from city planning staff and the mayor’s office on interim legislation the executive proposes to meet the state requirements of House Bill 11-10.","taxTitle","Seattle, King County, Washington","taxId",2543,"location","headline","","shortSummary",{"_33":76,"_35":36,"_37":38,"_39":77,"_41":78,"_43":79,"_45":80,"_47":81,"_49":82,"_51":83,"_53":84,"_55":56,"_57":58,"_59":85,"_61":62,"_63":64,"_65":86,"_67":68,"_69":70,"_71":68,"_72":73,"_74":73},6097201,"Seattle briefing: MHA’s role and an outside evaluation — consultants urge fee recalibration, faster timing of payments",6694,2123315,8817600,"/Search/View?dp=1&key=2828723-d37ac4f4b0e176925b9438b4193edc6d&start=2123&end=8817","https://assets.pipeline.soar.com/2828723-d37ac4f4b0e176925b9438b4193edc6d/thumbnail_2123315.jpg","/articles/6097201/Seattle/King-County/Washington/Seattle-briefing-MHAs-role-and-an-outside-evaluation-consultants-urge-fee-recalibration-faster-timing-of-payments","https://secure.pipeline.soar.com/6097201-fa6934a48407f07b852d631596e2de5e/orig.mp4?Expires=1773111214&Signature=Cj-NgwAu9O4KAfQsyrAiDI1FzvNGT0KczBFrpTXuASRv0brmpjePJHi5KbWqyn6E9bC8OUAd-9a2AyfwKch6NKrdjc70Un7DSuzvbTmd4NMBQPX9-OaRlY380D0GCJe42QgBR~M61QAxaPm2ts8lKrzmMolFA8j0Z5B8mq0zaZS-JQ6M67AY4-rgjFSA92LCgJojKubpk62LA3q6LXqclu7mjD~dLbkuq5OtQ0s54RW9VunWvjDy6Elk3G5t3fC~yow92uXdJ9QLgfg0jzGThptXkRjmie5GmfYfVW~~Cho6rJd4EVclCLpgeFEOkgOccO9GQTsGeEWNC2OQmOyVVg__&Key-Pair-Id=KUT5TJCACFTXG","City planning staff, the mayor’s office and outside consultants briefed the Select Committee on the Comprehensive Plan March 29 on Mandatory Housing Affordability (MHA), how the program would be applied under the proposed 1 Seattle comprehensive plan, and an independent five‑year evaluation of MHA outcomes.

“Mandatory housing affordability” is a city program that requires new development in many multifamily and commercial zones either to include affordable units or to pay an in‑lieu fee that the city uses to fund affordable housing, Jeff Wendland of the Office of Planning and Community Development told the committee. Under current practice, MHA is added when an up‑zone expands development capacity; higher up‑zones generally carry larger MHA requirements.

The executive recommended retaining MHA where the proposed plan creates neighborhood centers, expanded urban and regional centers and frequent‑transit corridors — a change staff said would increase the acreage subject to MHA by about 21 percent — but not applying MHA across the broader neighborhood residential (formerly single‑family) zones. Staff told the committee the rationale for that exception includes two points: first, HB 11‑10 already allows a built‑in density bonus for middle housing in NR zones (for example, up to six units on some lots when at least two are affordable), and second, the city’s consultant work suggests many small parcels in the NR proposal are unlikely to be economically feasible for middle‑housing construction with an additional MHA requirement.

Staff cited an Eco Northwest analysis estimating roughly 19 percent of parcels in the proposed NR areas would be feasible candidates for redevelopment under the middle‑housing rules. The executive argued that adding a relatively large inclusionary requirement to small‑scale projects could make middle‑housing infeasible and slow the production of the new housing types the state law aims to encourage.

Burke Consulting and Hartland Consulting presented the independent five‑year MHA evaluation. Kevin Ramsey of Burke said a central test for the program has been whether MHA could generate affordable housing revenue without reducing overall market‑rate housing production. The consultants found the program produced significant affordable housing funding and that payment revenues and city leveraging helped produce thousands of affordable units over the program’s first five years, but they also reported that market conditions have changed materially since fee levels were set.

Consultants summarized key findings: development economics that prevailed in 2019 have shifted. Rising construction costs, state and local code changes, post‑pandemic supply‑chain impacts, and higher interest rates have combined so that, for a “typical” mid‑rise project modeled in their analysis, a project that penciled in 2019 would often not meet feasibility thresholds in 2024 even without MHA. Consultants showed modeled examples in which the internal‑rate‑of‑return thresholds developers typically require (the consultants used a typical 15–20 percent return target) moved many projects below feasibility between 2019 and 2024.

The report also reviewed how developers comply with MHA: roughly 95 percent of projects subject to MHA have chosen the in‑lieu payment rather than building on‑site affordable units; the projects that did perform on‑site typically served lower‑income households (60 percent area‑median income) and required long affordability covenants. The Office of Housing and other city funds then combine MHA proceeds with other revenue to finance affordable buildings; consultants and staff said, combined with other sources, MHA‑leveraged funds helped produce about 4,700 affordable units from the program’s inception through the latest reporting period (consultants noted those units are produced with multiple funding sources, not MHA alone).

Given the changed market, Burke and Hartland recommended a menu of adjustments to keep MHA producing affordable housing while avoiding unintended reductions in housing production. Key recommendations presented to the committee included:

• Recalibrate fees on a recurring basis: replace a simple inflation index with periodic feasibility studies that test how fee levels affect prevailing product types and market conditions in different areas of the city. Consultants said the average MHA fee in citywide modeling rose from roughly $22 per built square foot in 2019 to about $28 per built square foot in 2024 (the precise fee varies by zone and market‑strength area).

• Adjust the timing of payments: consider moving some fee obligations closer to project financing milestones (for example, permit issuance or certificate of occupancy) so developers do not need to front large sums before construction financing or equity is in place. Consultants described cases where projects faced multi‑million‑dollar payment obligations well before financing closed.

• Streamline permitting and design review for MHA‑subject projects: shorten review timelines and reduce uncertainty that increase carrying costs and financing risk, particularly for small developers.

• Encourage performance and lower administrative barriers: explore options so that on‑site affordable units are a more attractive and feasible option (for example, allowing performance units to count toward other incentives such as multifamily tax exemptions in some cases, or reducing administrative burdens for small developers).

Committee members asked many clarifying questions about the consultants’ assumptions, whether other cities tie exemptions to unit thresholds, and the degree to which MHA revenues would continue to be a significant share of affordable‑housing funding as other city sources (for example, the levy and JumpStart payroll expense tax) rise. Staff acknowledged MHA revenues are one of many funding sources and that projections show other sources increasing; they also emphasized the program is only productive when market‑rate housing is being built.

Several council members and the executive said they remain committed to MHA as a tool but want to ensure it is calibrated to evolving market conditions. Staff said they will continue to work with council on potential code and administrative changes, on the interim implementation of HB 11‑10, and on measures to reduce barriers for middle‑housing production while preserving affordable‑housing funding.","City planning staff, the mayor’s office and outside consultants briefed the Select Committee March 29 on Mandatory Housing Affordability (MHA), how it would apply under the 1 Seattle plan and findings from a five‑year evaluation.","actionData","errors"]

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Seattle committee previews interim rules to implement House Bill 11-10, sets one-year window

Seattle briefing: MHA’s role and an outside evaluation — consultants urge fee recalibration, faster timing of payments